Alright, his is my first Hermione/Bill fic. I'm not even sure anyone else
pairs her up with Bill, but I hope you will read it anyway. (BTW, I can't
remember how old he is, could anyone tell me?)
Disclaimer; Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling, and no profit is intended to be made from this.
*****'
Hermione washed her hands slowly, not really wanting to go back out again. She finished washing and stared in the mirror for a while. One of her Muggle friends had graduated, and her parents had decided to throw her a party at a hotel here in London. Hermione had been invited, and hadn't been able decline, no matter how much she'd wanted to. Over the years, she and Sarah and grown apart, and she no longer understood her.
But she had gone to the party because she felt like she was neglecting her Muggle friends, and wanted to spend more time with them. She still had one year left at Hogwarts, and over the years, she had started to forget her friends from before Hogwarts, so she wanted to make it up to them.
One year left at Hogwarts, and she still didn't know what she wanted to do after she finished school. She sighed, dried her hands and stepped out in the corridor, resolved to at least give the party a chance before she gave up. She turned a corner, and straight into someone, knocking the person over, as well as herself
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see where I was going, I didn't mean to knock you over, and it was an accident!" She started to apologize, even before she opened her eyes again.
"Hey, hey slow down, slow down. It's alright." The person she'd knocked over assured her.
Wait, she recognized that voice. She had heard it several times before. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into a face topped with long red hair, brilliant blue eyes and an easy grin. A face she'd seen before.
"Bill?" She asked dumbfounded.
"Hermione?" He asked, just as shocked as she was.
And indeed, in front of her, sprawled on the floor, was Bill Weasley. He looked like he always had; long hair pulled up in a ponytail and one ear adorned with a fang. The only difference was that he was sprawled on the floor of a Muggle hotel, and not standing in the Weasley's backyard, knocking flying tables together, or sitting in the kitchen of number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked.
Bill chuckled and started to get up, pulling her up as well. She quickly straightened her T-shirt that had ended up rather bunched up, due to the collision.
"What, not even a hello before you start interrogating me? I'm hurt." He said, running a hand through his ponytail.
"I'm sorry, I was just -"She started to apologize again.
"Whoa, slow down, you said that already. I was joking, Hermione." He said smiling now.
"Right." She said, blushing.
"That's alright. I'm just passing through actually. What're you doing here? I thought Ron said you lived down in some place called Kingsnorth." Bill asked.
"I do, but one of my friends graduated, and her parents threw a party here. I was forced to go." She admitted, shrugging.
"Forced? Sounds bad, that. Didn't want to go?"
"Not really, but I've been neglecting my Muggle friends as of late, and I felt like I owed it to them." She explained.
"Mind if I join?" Bill asked.
"No, not at all, but I thought you said you were just passing through." She said, furrowing her brow.
"I have to be in London tomorrow morning," He explained as they set off towards the lobby. "And since I've got my Apparation license already, I'll Apparate. I was going to go home just now, but since I haven't seen you in ages, I thought I'd keep you company, and catch up with what you've been doing these last, how many years?"
"It must be two years since I saw you last." She admitted.
"That long? Seems shorter, for some reason." He said.
They entered the lobby, and were met by a group of people, dancing, talking and drinking, most of them looking rather uncomfortable, maybe because their parents had forced them to go. Hermione made her way over to one of the tables, which was the only one where there was room enough for two more. She sat down, and Bill took the chair next to her.
"So, Hermie, what've you been up to?" He asked.
"A lot of things I'll tell you all about in a moment, but I have to warn you; if you ever call me Hermie again, I'll rip your toenails out and force you to eat them." She threatened.
"What's so bad about Hermie?" Bill asked innocently.
"Because that's what Ron called me that all the time when he wanted me to do his homework. I refused, he got mad, and we got into a fight. I haven't spoken to him since. Thankfully, it was the last week before school ended, so I didn't have to avoid him forever." Hermione said with a scowl on her face.
"How about ´Mione, then? You've got to have a nickname, you know. Everyone does." Bill suggested.
"Alright, if you insist." She sighed. Then she leaned back in her chair and watched him with one eyebrow raised.
"I gather you had a nickname too?" She asked.
"Of course I do. Bill is my nickname, not my real one." He said, smiling.
"Really now? That's interesting. Where'd you get it?"
"School, of course." He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she was acting like a demented little girl.
"Hermione, who's that?" Asked one of the girls at the table, pointing at Bill, apparently not caring that she was being rude.
"Bill Weasley." She introduced him, but otherwise ignored her.
"Hey, Bill, come to think of it; what are you doing in England?" She asked, turning back to him.
"Business. They're relocating me." He shrugged.
"Why? Ran out of work?" She raised an eyebrow again.
"No, they thought I needed a change of scenery. Of course, that could have been because I would only write my report in hieroglyphs." He said, winking at her.
"No, you didn't!" She exclaimed, laughing.
"Why shouldn't I? That's what I spend most of my time reading, after all."
"You know, seeing as you're related to Fred and George, I shouldn't be surprised."
"Was that an insult?"
"You bet."
"Ouch, let's change subject before you start chewing on me. Do you have any plans on what you want to do after school?" He asked, suppressing a chuckle.
"Well, not really. I told McGonagall that I wanted to go on to university and maybe become a teacher or something like it afterwards, but that was nearly two years ago, and I'm not so sure anymore."
Bill looked thoughtful for a moment, and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. In the laps in conversation, she could hear the music from the far end of the room, currently playing some sort of rap song.
"You know, if you want, I could get you a job at the bank. Just this summer, so you can try it out." He ventured after a while. "You could work with me, if you'd like. God knows Mum will kill me if I suggest anything else." He finished, grinning.
"Really? You mean that?" She asked excitedly. "Work with you?"
"Sure, why wouldn't I mean it? It's only fair that someone with your intelligence should get as many chances as she could to make up her mind about what she wants to do, so that she doesn't end up buried under a heap of books in some dusty library somewhere." Bill shrugged.
"What a Weasley way to give a compliment." Hermione remarked.
"´Weasley way´?" Bill asked.
"Yes, Weasley's seem to have their very own way of giving compliments, although they're generally worse than that. Ron always manages to insult me as well as compliment me whenever he tries. Of course, that could just be Ron." She explained.
"Of course it's just Ron! How you could ever confuse me with that skinny excuse for a brother of mine, I'll never know!" Bill sniffed pompously, resembling Percy so much that Hermione had to laugh.
"Skinny? Bill, you're skinny too." She pointed out.
"What? I am horizontally challenged, thank you very much. And I do not think of myself in such degrading terms as ´skinny´. ´Narrow´ or ´raw boned´ is better." Bill stated, Percy-like.
"Whatever. So, I can come with you this summer?"
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"Alright! But I've got ask my parents first." She said, swallowing some of her excitement.
"I'll write you a letter with the details, and I could write them one as well. Deal?" Bill offered.
"Sure!" Hermione said, and they shook hands on it, and laughed a bit.
Bill was just about to say something more when he caught sight of the clock on the opposite wall.
"Bloody hell, ´Mione, I've got to go, or I won't get any sleep before I have to go to work tomorrow." He said.
"Oh, alright. See you soon then?"
"Yeah, see you." He said, ruffled her already frizzy hair and disappeared out the door; ponytail swishing as he nearly ran out.
Hermione turned back to her Muggle friends, only to find them staring at her. She looked at each of them in turn, expecting them to say something, but giving up soon.
"What?" She asked.
"Hermione, where the hell did you meet that guy? He was like totally cool!" Sarah exclaimed.
"Yeah! Like that thing in his ear! Wicked!" Said Tanya, Sarah's best friend.
Hermione sat back and sighed. Her friends could be so strange some times. And unfortunately, Tanya was sounding strangely like Ron at the moment. She and Ron had had a huge fight, and she'd said some things she didn't really mean, but so had he, and now they weren't talking, only communicating through Harry. He had asked her numerous times to come and stay at the Burrow, but she'd refused, on the grounds that Ron wouldn't talk to her anyway.
****'
Hermione got home later, said goodnight to her parents and got to bed; she could tell them about Bill's offer in the morning. Today had been an eventful day, she reflected. It had been two years since she'd last seen Bill, and she had never known him very well, for all that he was a Weasley. As he was the eldest of the siblings, she had never gone to school with him, and had only seen him at the summer stays at the Burrow. She remembered him as a cheerful guy who got in frequent arguments with his mother about his hair, and who had held bets on which of the Twins would botch their latest experiment.
She rolled over and stared out the window. They had never even talked that much. She knew he was a good guy, and she was friends with all the Weasley's, but spending the summer with Bill would be an interesting experience. She had heard from Ron that he'd been Head Boy at Hogwarts, and she had a creeping suspicion she'd be Head Girl, at least if McGonagall had something to say about it, so she would have a lot of questions to ask him.
She had always been curious about what exactly his job entailed. Being a Curse Breaker in Egypt, he seemed to get into a lot of interesting situations, and as most of the curses placed on magical objects were very old, they required a lot of research to break. And as research was Hermione's forte, she knew she would be spending this summer at least part- time happily buried in a stack of books.
And she would get to know Bill better, which would be fun. Smiling to herself, she turned over again and fell asleep.
*****'
Ending Notes: Well, what do you think? I believe I could do the long conversation scene a bit better, but I read through it three times, and I didn't know exactly where to change it. Tell me what you think about my story, please. Flames will be fed to the Salamander liberated by Fred and George from Care of Magical Creatures in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which later escaped though the chimney.
Disclaimer; Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling, and no profit is intended to be made from this.
*****'
Hermione washed her hands slowly, not really wanting to go back out again. She finished washing and stared in the mirror for a while. One of her Muggle friends had graduated, and her parents had decided to throw her a party at a hotel here in London. Hermione had been invited, and hadn't been able decline, no matter how much she'd wanted to. Over the years, she and Sarah and grown apart, and she no longer understood her.
But she had gone to the party because she felt like she was neglecting her Muggle friends, and wanted to spend more time with them. She still had one year left at Hogwarts, and over the years, she had started to forget her friends from before Hogwarts, so she wanted to make it up to them.
One year left at Hogwarts, and she still didn't know what she wanted to do after she finished school. She sighed, dried her hands and stepped out in the corridor, resolved to at least give the party a chance before she gave up. She turned a corner, and straight into someone, knocking the person over, as well as herself
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see where I was going, I didn't mean to knock you over, and it was an accident!" She started to apologize, even before she opened her eyes again.
"Hey, hey slow down, slow down. It's alright." The person she'd knocked over assured her.
Wait, she recognized that voice. She had heard it several times before. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into a face topped with long red hair, brilliant blue eyes and an easy grin. A face she'd seen before.
"Bill?" She asked dumbfounded.
"Hermione?" He asked, just as shocked as she was.
And indeed, in front of her, sprawled on the floor, was Bill Weasley. He looked like he always had; long hair pulled up in a ponytail and one ear adorned with a fang. The only difference was that he was sprawled on the floor of a Muggle hotel, and not standing in the Weasley's backyard, knocking flying tables together, or sitting in the kitchen of number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked.
Bill chuckled and started to get up, pulling her up as well. She quickly straightened her T-shirt that had ended up rather bunched up, due to the collision.
"What, not even a hello before you start interrogating me? I'm hurt." He said, running a hand through his ponytail.
"I'm sorry, I was just -"She started to apologize again.
"Whoa, slow down, you said that already. I was joking, Hermione." He said smiling now.
"Right." She said, blushing.
"That's alright. I'm just passing through actually. What're you doing here? I thought Ron said you lived down in some place called Kingsnorth." Bill asked.
"I do, but one of my friends graduated, and her parents threw a party here. I was forced to go." She admitted, shrugging.
"Forced? Sounds bad, that. Didn't want to go?"
"Not really, but I've been neglecting my Muggle friends as of late, and I felt like I owed it to them." She explained.
"Mind if I join?" Bill asked.
"No, not at all, but I thought you said you were just passing through." She said, furrowing her brow.
"I have to be in London tomorrow morning," He explained as they set off towards the lobby. "And since I've got my Apparation license already, I'll Apparate. I was going to go home just now, but since I haven't seen you in ages, I thought I'd keep you company, and catch up with what you've been doing these last, how many years?"
"It must be two years since I saw you last." She admitted.
"That long? Seems shorter, for some reason." He said.
They entered the lobby, and were met by a group of people, dancing, talking and drinking, most of them looking rather uncomfortable, maybe because their parents had forced them to go. Hermione made her way over to one of the tables, which was the only one where there was room enough for two more. She sat down, and Bill took the chair next to her.
"So, Hermie, what've you been up to?" He asked.
"A lot of things I'll tell you all about in a moment, but I have to warn you; if you ever call me Hermie again, I'll rip your toenails out and force you to eat them." She threatened.
"What's so bad about Hermie?" Bill asked innocently.
"Because that's what Ron called me that all the time when he wanted me to do his homework. I refused, he got mad, and we got into a fight. I haven't spoken to him since. Thankfully, it was the last week before school ended, so I didn't have to avoid him forever." Hermione said with a scowl on her face.
"How about ´Mione, then? You've got to have a nickname, you know. Everyone does." Bill suggested.
"Alright, if you insist." She sighed. Then she leaned back in her chair and watched him with one eyebrow raised.
"I gather you had a nickname too?" She asked.
"Of course I do. Bill is my nickname, not my real one." He said, smiling.
"Really now? That's interesting. Where'd you get it?"
"School, of course." He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she was acting like a demented little girl.
"Hermione, who's that?" Asked one of the girls at the table, pointing at Bill, apparently not caring that she was being rude.
"Bill Weasley." She introduced him, but otherwise ignored her.
"Hey, Bill, come to think of it; what are you doing in England?" She asked, turning back to him.
"Business. They're relocating me." He shrugged.
"Why? Ran out of work?" She raised an eyebrow again.
"No, they thought I needed a change of scenery. Of course, that could have been because I would only write my report in hieroglyphs." He said, winking at her.
"No, you didn't!" She exclaimed, laughing.
"Why shouldn't I? That's what I spend most of my time reading, after all."
"You know, seeing as you're related to Fred and George, I shouldn't be surprised."
"Was that an insult?"
"You bet."
"Ouch, let's change subject before you start chewing on me. Do you have any plans on what you want to do after school?" He asked, suppressing a chuckle.
"Well, not really. I told McGonagall that I wanted to go on to university and maybe become a teacher or something like it afterwards, but that was nearly two years ago, and I'm not so sure anymore."
Bill looked thoughtful for a moment, and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. In the laps in conversation, she could hear the music from the far end of the room, currently playing some sort of rap song.
"You know, if you want, I could get you a job at the bank. Just this summer, so you can try it out." He ventured after a while. "You could work with me, if you'd like. God knows Mum will kill me if I suggest anything else." He finished, grinning.
"Really? You mean that?" She asked excitedly. "Work with you?"
"Sure, why wouldn't I mean it? It's only fair that someone with your intelligence should get as many chances as she could to make up her mind about what she wants to do, so that she doesn't end up buried under a heap of books in some dusty library somewhere." Bill shrugged.
"What a Weasley way to give a compliment." Hermione remarked.
"´Weasley way´?" Bill asked.
"Yes, Weasley's seem to have their very own way of giving compliments, although they're generally worse than that. Ron always manages to insult me as well as compliment me whenever he tries. Of course, that could just be Ron." She explained.
"Of course it's just Ron! How you could ever confuse me with that skinny excuse for a brother of mine, I'll never know!" Bill sniffed pompously, resembling Percy so much that Hermione had to laugh.
"Skinny? Bill, you're skinny too." She pointed out.
"What? I am horizontally challenged, thank you very much. And I do not think of myself in such degrading terms as ´skinny´. ´Narrow´ or ´raw boned´ is better." Bill stated, Percy-like.
"Whatever. So, I can come with you this summer?"
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"Alright! But I've got ask my parents first." She said, swallowing some of her excitement.
"I'll write you a letter with the details, and I could write them one as well. Deal?" Bill offered.
"Sure!" Hermione said, and they shook hands on it, and laughed a bit.
Bill was just about to say something more when he caught sight of the clock on the opposite wall.
"Bloody hell, ´Mione, I've got to go, or I won't get any sleep before I have to go to work tomorrow." He said.
"Oh, alright. See you soon then?"
"Yeah, see you." He said, ruffled her already frizzy hair and disappeared out the door; ponytail swishing as he nearly ran out.
Hermione turned back to her Muggle friends, only to find them staring at her. She looked at each of them in turn, expecting them to say something, but giving up soon.
"What?" She asked.
"Hermione, where the hell did you meet that guy? He was like totally cool!" Sarah exclaimed.
"Yeah! Like that thing in his ear! Wicked!" Said Tanya, Sarah's best friend.
Hermione sat back and sighed. Her friends could be so strange some times. And unfortunately, Tanya was sounding strangely like Ron at the moment. She and Ron had had a huge fight, and she'd said some things she didn't really mean, but so had he, and now they weren't talking, only communicating through Harry. He had asked her numerous times to come and stay at the Burrow, but she'd refused, on the grounds that Ron wouldn't talk to her anyway.
****'
Hermione got home later, said goodnight to her parents and got to bed; she could tell them about Bill's offer in the morning. Today had been an eventful day, she reflected. It had been two years since she'd last seen Bill, and she had never known him very well, for all that he was a Weasley. As he was the eldest of the siblings, she had never gone to school with him, and had only seen him at the summer stays at the Burrow. She remembered him as a cheerful guy who got in frequent arguments with his mother about his hair, and who had held bets on which of the Twins would botch their latest experiment.
She rolled over and stared out the window. They had never even talked that much. She knew he was a good guy, and she was friends with all the Weasley's, but spending the summer with Bill would be an interesting experience. She had heard from Ron that he'd been Head Boy at Hogwarts, and she had a creeping suspicion she'd be Head Girl, at least if McGonagall had something to say about it, so she would have a lot of questions to ask him.
She had always been curious about what exactly his job entailed. Being a Curse Breaker in Egypt, he seemed to get into a lot of interesting situations, and as most of the curses placed on magical objects were very old, they required a lot of research to break. And as research was Hermione's forte, she knew she would be spending this summer at least part- time happily buried in a stack of books.
And she would get to know Bill better, which would be fun. Smiling to herself, she turned over again and fell asleep.
*****'
Ending Notes: Well, what do you think? I believe I could do the long conversation scene a bit better, but I read through it three times, and I didn't know exactly where to change it. Tell me what you think about my story, please. Flames will be fed to the Salamander liberated by Fred and George from Care of Magical Creatures in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which later escaped though the chimney.